American Meadows is my wildflower seed purveyor of choice. They are a company that is located in Shelburne, Vermont on the banks of Lake Champlain and they have become a dominant purveyor of wildflower seeds in the country. Now let’s get serious here, among seed companies, Bayer (as in the aspirin people that bought Monsanto a few years ago) is still the 800 pound gorilla of seeds, but that is mostly general seeds for commercial farming use. If you want corn seed, soybean seed, silage seed, sorghum seed, cotton seed, spring canola seed, or wheat seed, you go to Bayer. If you want wildflower seeds, you get to choose among several much smaller companies that take wildflower meadows very seriously and are passionate about selling you wildflowers. From what I can tell from 10,000 feet on the internet, there is American Meadows of Vermont, Eden Brothers and Bulk Wildflowers of North Carolina, Ferry-Morse of Massachusetts, Everwilde Farms of nearby Fallbrook, CA, good old Burpee Seeds of Philadelphia, Wildseed Farms of Texas, and Vermont Wildflower Farms from guess where? I have priced the various vendors, but have only ever bought seeds from American Meadows, which is run by a guy so dedicated to wildflowers that he has worked at the company since he was 13 years old and who now calls himself The Seed Man. The company’s diversity and hiring policy is pure Bernie Sanders Vermont, which I like and which seems to suit a product like wildflower seeds, which must have as its biggest and most controversial business policy issue whether or not they are going GMO or non-GMO (guess which they they are?).
I never realized it, but wildflowers have a lot of issues associated with them. The one I found most interesting is that it is most often illegal in most places to just broadcast wildflower seeds along the side of public roadways. I’ve got to imagine it would be hard to prosecute someone for spreading wildflower seeds and I imagine there must be something out there in the defense bar that is likened to the Johnny Appleseed defense. There are literally hundreds of wildflower seed offerings. They range from special one-flower offerings of annuals or perennials all the way to regional or specialized blends that mix all sorts of colorful blooms that include annuals and perennials. You can focus on one color or go for a full palate of colors. The variations you are asked to specify are color, lifecycle, planting season, plant height, characteristics like bee-attracting, bird-attracting, butterfly-attracting or humming bird-attracting. There are easy to grow varieties and hard to grow versions, as well as high and low maintenance. There are some that work better in dry soil and some that work better in wet soil. Some do better in greater light, partial shade, and total shade. There are 1-10 growing zones (we are #10). And perhaps one of the most important characteristics, since you are presumably planting a wildflower meadow to bring color to your property, is what exact bloom season that particular blend of flowers can be expected to produce.
I have always loved wildflower meadows and that comes from my northeastern and Upstate New York upbringing. Don’t get me wrong, California has amazing wildflower blooms along the roadside in the spring. In fact, in this area some years (like this year) the Super Bloom is considered a major tourist attraction and it takes place in the wide open desert (like near Borego Springs), along the roads heading out to the desert, areas that go lovely golden colored in the height of summer, and even (and often especially) along the Freeway. Those blooms are mostly bright yellow, but if you look closely enough, you will also see lots of blue and orange. One of the prettiest wildflowers, in my opinion, is the California Poppy, which is a very mellow orange and quite a pretty bloom. I’m not sure where they all came from, but around my front garden, especially along the driveway, I get lots of annual California Poppies and even more flox-like white Alyssum. The Alyssum is a very petite and very plentiful flower that grows like a weed (and sort of IS a weed) and as pretty and fanciful as it can seem, I find myself pulling it out after a bit since it seems to muddy the waters of garden if left unchecked. I have the exact opposite reaction to the California Poppies, which I can’t bring myself to pull out because they are so vibrantly pretty and kinda cute the way they tuck in at night and spread open in the sunlight.
I have two very specific parts of my back hillside that I consider dedicated to wildflowers. My main wildflower garden is a rocky piece of hillside that sits directly north of the house. Every morning I peer around the the sidelights in the master bath and look out at the patch of rocky hillside that is about 40×40 feet and bounded by a large boulder to the uphill side (what else?), a path down to my northwest rock garden, and a stretch of relatively and purposefully barren hillside with a large outcropping of prickly pear to the further downhill northern side. I don’t know exactly why I decided to make that my wildflower meadow, but it really is the perfect place because there is irrigation in the form of white PVC piping and four defining upright heads that some irrigation installer years ago must have decided was needed, but not worth properly burying it. Over the last five years, I have added bags and bags of planting soil to try to cover those irrigation pipes and I have about done so, but not quite fully. I have found that out here I need to take this rocky and dry hillside soil and water it daily to get the wildflowers to really pop. Luckily, my irrigation system allows me to do that without overdoing areas like the nearby cactus knoll that needs much less frequent watering and would suffer from daily watering. It’s funny how things sometimes just fall into place in an appropriate way without too much overthinking. That’s the way its been with my norther wildflower meadow.
The other wildflower spot I have designated is an area on the lower hillside that is once again somewhat naturally formed by some boulders and paths that I have put in. Trust me, the boulders have been there for millennia and my paths were simply the logical place to most easily walk downhill. And there was one spot where the candlestick ice plants and the larger blue agaves did not happen to proliferate, so almost out of laziness and because my American Meadows literature kept warning me not to overseed my other meadow (I had overbought seed), I thought that this spot might take to wildflowers…or not if it was too dry. What happened was that certain, hardier perennials in reddish orange took particularly well and have never needed reseeding. Easy year, with minimal attention, they just sprout up and add a nice bit of color to the hillside.
But yesterday, I did my annual sowing of the northern meadow, which seems to need much more attention (maybe because I stare at it each morning). I raked it out, mixed a bag of seed with a bucket of sand, and hand broadcast it over the area. It never feels like enough, so I will do it again in two weeks to be sure (I can’t help myself). Then I watered it and let it be. I started my vigil this morning, but it will take 40-60 days for it to show anything…and maybe longer given my timing. Ah well, such is the way I wildflower.